ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Dad stories, though fictional, are in loving memory of Rodney Dalton and Lane Greene. “The Perverted Hobo” is for Benjamin, and “War Foods” is after Lynne’s essay, “An Impossible Man.” “Escape Mushroom Style” was inspired by a Chinese restaurant menu courtesy Takeshi, and the Ling Chih identification borrows copy from the National Audubon Field Guide to North American Mushrooms, by Gary Lincoff. “The Sad Drag Monologues” are for Stanya and Ariana.
“Small Time Spender” borrows lyrics from the song, “Super Cool Brother” by LA Bare Faxx, and “Jackpot (II)” borrows the Lady’chete from Kathy. “Treehouses” in “Word Salad” was inspired by Jim. Gratitude to my animal companions, Yucca and Shuggie. To Amy, Eileen, Dennis, Bjorn, Sadie, Jesse, Bianca, Sierra, Gail, Francine, Heidi, Jay, Andrea, and Sue: thank you for your inspirational friendship, art, support, and conversation that led to ideas spawning the invented characters here. Thanks to NYU, Pratt, and Vermont College of Fine Arts, Sumanth Prubhaker of Madras Press, Dan Nadel of Picturebox, the CANADA gallery crew. Thanks to my family: Tammie, Greg, Sunny, Amanda, as well as Mike and KC, brothers from another mother. Thanks to Xylor for the cover image. Thanks to Sean for reading early drafts. Thanks to Eric and Eliza for publishing Baby Geisha and for making me excited about the future of books. This book {in spirit} is dedicated to Stevie Wonder, and {in physical reality} is dedicated to Matt: true love, talented artist, dedicated editor and muse.
ABOUT THE COVER ART
FLASK, BY XYLOR JANE
“Flask” is the third mate in Moby Dick, and the title of the drawing. Xylor Jane was born on a palindrome 12/21, the longest night of the year. A double 7, cat and candy lover, looking to take harmonica lessons. She is represented by CANADA Gallery in New York. Her work has been exhibited internationally and can be viewed in her most recent catalogue, Xylor Jane (Picturebox).
Also published by TWO DOLLAR RADIO
THE CORRESPONDENCE ARTIST
A NOVEL BY BARBARA BROWNING
A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9820151-9-3; $16 US
“A deft look at modern life that’s both witty and devastating.”
—Nylon
Vivian has been carrying on a love affair with a famous artist. Rather than revealing her paramour’s identity, she creates a series of fictional lovers in the service of telling her tale.
THE PEOPLE WHO WATCHED HER PASS BY
A NOVEL BY SCOTT BRADFIELD
A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9820151-5-5; $14.50 US
“A billowy adventure of a book.”
—New York Times Book Review
Salome Jensen is a three-year-old girl whose drift across America inspires a perspective of the world and an understanding of its people more meaningful than the most erudite observer could muster.
THE ORANGE EATS CREEPS
A NOVEL BY GRACE KRILANOVICH
A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9820151-8-6; $16 US
National Book Foundation 2010 ‘5 Under 35’ Selection.
NPR Best Books of 2010.
The Believer Book Award Finalist.
“Krilanovich’s work will make you believe that new ways of storytelling are still emerging from the margins.”—NPR
A girl with drug-induced ESP and an eerie connection to Patty Reed, searches for her disappeared foster sister along ‘The Highway That Eats People.’
THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER
A NOVEL BY RUDOLPH WURLITZER
A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9763895-5-2; $15.00 US
Time Out New York’s #1 Best Book of 2008.
ForeWord Magazine 2008 Gold Medal in Literary Fiction.
“The most hallucinogenic western you’ll ever catch in the moviehouse of your mind’s eye.”—Bookforum
A new contemporary classic that follows Zebulon Shook as he explores America’s true myth of origins.
FLATS / QUAKE
TWO CLASSIC NOVELS BY RUDOLPH WURLITZER
Trade Paperback; 978-0-9820151-4-8; $17 US
“Together they provide a tour of the dissolution of identity that was daily life in the sixties.”
—Michael Silverblatt, KCRW’s Bookworm
Flats is a post-apocalyptic exploration of the human self. Quake chronicles the unraveling of society after an earthquake strikes Los Angeles. Both are nihilistic and haunting, as well as uncomfortably foreboding.
NOG
A NOVEL BY RUDOLPH WURLITZER
A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9820151-2-4; $15.50 US
“[Nog’s] combo of Samuel Beckett syntax and hippie-era freakiness mapped out new literary territory for generations to come.”
—Time Out New York
In Wurlitzer’s hypnotic voice, Nog tells the tale of a man adrift through the American West, armed with nothing more than three pencil-thin memories and an octopus in a bathysphere.
THE CAVE MAN
A NOVEL BY XIAODA XIAO
A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9820151-3-1; $15.50 US
“As a parable of modern China, [The Cave Man] is chilling.”
—Boston Globe
An extraordinary and moving portrait of a man brutalized in Mao’s China.
THE VISITING SUIT
A MEMOIR BY XIAODA XIAO
A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9820151-7-9; $16.50 US
“These stories personify the compassion, humor, and dignity inherent not just in survival but in triumphing over despair.”
—O: The Oprah Magazine
When Xiaoda Xiao was twenty-years-old he tore a poster of Mao. Without a trail he was sentenced to five years in labor prison. A poignant and incredibly moving memoir-in-stories.
YOU ARE MY HEART AND OTHER STORIES
STORIES BY JAY NEUGEBOREN
A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9826848-8-7; $16 US
“[Neugeboren] might not be as famous as some of his compeers, like Philip Roth or John Updike, but it’s becoming increasingly harder to argue that he’s any less talented.”
—Kirkus Reviews
From the secluded villages in the south of France, to the cattle crawl in the Valley of a Thousand Hills in South Africa, Neugeboren examines the great mysteries that unsettle human relationships.
SEVEN DAYS IN RIO
A NOVEL BY FRANCIS LEVY
A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9826848-7-0; $16 US
“The funniest American novel since Sam Lipsyte’s The Ask.”
—Village Voice
Kenny Cantor is a CPA and sex-tourist who becomes waylaid at a psychoanalytic conference in this wicked satire.
EROTOMANIA: A ROMANCE
A NOVEL BY FRANCIS LEVY
A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9763895-7-6; $14 US
Inland Empire Weekly Standout Book of 2008.
Queerty.com Top 10 Book of 2008.
“Levy is our generation’s D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and Charles Bukowski rolled into one.”
—Inland Empire Weekly
A comedic, absurdist portrait of a modern-day romance.
THE SHANGHAI GESTURE
A NOVEL BY GARY INDIANA
A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9820151-0-0; $15.50 US
“[Gary Indiana] is the primary reporter of the underground, the dissociation of cultures, the new behaviors; there is a sense that if you want to understand what has happened in America, you would have to read Gary Indiana. And this newest book is a leap forward.”—Michael Silverblatt,
KCRW’s Bookworm
Indiana applies his prickly wit, nihilistic vision, and utterly original voice to this side-splitting spin on Fu Manchu.
TWO DOLLAR RADIO is a family-run outfit founded in 2005 with the mission to reaffirm the cultural and artistic spirit of the publishing industry.
We aim to do this by presenting bold works of literary merit, each book, individually and collectively, providing a sonic progression that we believe to be too loud to ignore.
Copyright © 2012 by Trinie Dalton All rights rese
rved
eISBN : 978-0-983-24714-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011943111
Author photograph: Jason Frank Rothenberg
Stories in this collection were also published as follows:
“Jackpot (I)” in H.O.W. (Helping Orphans Worldwide); “Jackpot (II)” in Luna Luna exhibition catalog (Nothing Moments); “Baby Geisha” in Swink; “War Foods” in Santa Monica Review; “The Perverted Hobo” in Birthing Valley of the Blood Poppies exhibition catalog; “Escape Mushroom Style” in The Lifted Brow (Australia), Numéro Cinq, The Corresponding Society chapbook series; “Word Salad” in Opium; “Millenium Chill” in Indiana Review; “Shrub of Emotion” in Ecotone; “Wet Look” in Puerto del Sol; “Scarlet Gilia” in Supermachine; “Hairpin Scorpion” in New Planes Public Press (Australia); “Small Time Spender” in Knee-Jerk Offline, Vol. 2.
Typeset in Garamond, the best font ever.
No portion of this book may be copied or reproduced, with the exception of quotes used in critical essays and reviews, without the written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s lively imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
TWO DOLLAR RADIO
Books too loud to ignore.
Baby Geisha Page 13
